SHEPHERD. (Going Home at Eve)
His folded flock secure, the shepherd home Hies, merry-hearted; and by turns relieves The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail; The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart, Unknowing what the joy-mixt anguish means, Sincerely loves, by that best language shown Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds. Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height, And valley sunk, and unfrequented; where At fall of eve the fairy people throng, In various game and revelry, to pass The summer night, as village-stories tell. But far about they wander from the grave Of him, whom his ungentle fertune urg'd Against his own sad breast to lift the hand Of impious violence. The lonely tower Is also shunn'd; whose mournful chambers hold, So night-struck fancy dreams, the yelling ghost. THOMSON.
SHIELD. (Satan's described)
His pond'rous shield
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At ev'ning from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, on her spotty globe.
His spear (to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand.)
O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm,
Majestically calm, would go
Mid the deep darkness white as snow!
But gently now the small waves glide
Like playful lambs o'er a mountain's side.
So stately her bearing, so proud her array,
The main she will traverse for ever and aye.
Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast!
-Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer! this hour
is her last.
Five hundred souls in one instant of dread
Are hurried o'er the deck;
And fast the miserable ship
Becomes a lifeless wreck.
Her keel hath struck on a hidden rock,
Her planks are torn asunder,
And down comes her masts with a reeling shock
And a hideous crash like thunder,
Her sails are draggled in the brine
That gladden'd late the skies,
And her pendant that kiss'd the fair moonshine,
Down many a fathom lies.
Her beauteous sides, whose rainbow hues
Gleamed softly from below,
And flung a warm and sunny flash
O'er the wreaths of murmuring snow,
To the coral rocks are hurrying down
To sleep amid colours as bright as their own.
Oh! many a dream was in the ship
An hour before her death;
And sights of home with sighs disturb'd
The sleepers' long-drawn breath.
Instead of the murmur of the sea
The sailor heard the humming tree
Alive through all its leaves,
The hum of the spreading sycamore
That grows before his cottage-door,
And the swallow's song in the eaves.
His arms inclosed a blooming boy,
Who listen'd with tears of sorrow and joy
To the dangers his father had pass'd;
And his wife-by turns she wept and smiled,
As she look'd on the father of her child
Return'd to her heart at last.
He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll,
And the rush of waters is in his soul.-
Now is the ocean's bosom bare,
Unbroken as the floating air;
The ship hath melted quite away,
Like a struggling dream at break of day,
No image meets my wandering eye
But the new-risen sun, and the sunny sky. Though the night-shades are gone, yet a vapour dull
Bedims the waves so beautiful;
While a low and melancholy moan
Mourns for the glory that hath flown.
SIN. (Satan's Encounter with)
The other shape,
If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd;
For each seem'd either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand; and from his seat
The monster, moving onward, came as fast
With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.
Th' undaunted fiend what this might be admir'd ;
Admir'd, not fear'd; God and his Son except,
Created thing nought valued he, nor shunn'd;
And with disdainful look thus first began:-
"Whence and what art thou, execrable shape,
That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance
Thy miscreated front athwart my way
To yonder gates? through them I mean to pass,
That be assur'd, without leave ask'd of thee:
Retire, or taste thy folly; and learn by proof,
Hell-born, not to contend with spirits of Heav'n."
To whom the goblin, full of wrath, reply'd:
"Art thou that traitor angel, art thou he,
Who first broke peace in Heav'n and faith, till then
Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms
Drew after him the third part of Heav'n's sons,
Conjur'd against the High'st, for which both thou
And they, outcast from God, are here condemn'd
To waste eternal days in woe and pain ?
And reckon'st thou thysclf with spirits of Heaven,
Hell-doom'd, and breath'st defiance here and scorn
Where I reign king, and, to enrage thee more,
Thy king and lord? Back to thy punishment,
False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings,
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue
Thy ling'ring, or with one stroke of this dart
Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before."
So spake the grisly terror, and in shape,
So speaking and so threat'ning, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deform: on th' other side,
Incens'd with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified; and like a comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head
Levell❜d his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend; and such a frown
Each cast at th' other, as when two black clouds,
With Heav'ns artillery fraught, come rattling on
Over the Caspian, then stand front to front
Hov'ring a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid-air :
So frown'd the mighty combatants, that hell
Grew darker at their frown, so match'd they stood;
For never but once more was either like
Remove yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps;
Is that a temple where a God may dwell?
Why ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd
cell!
Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul:
Yes, this was once ambition's airy hall,
The dome of thought, the palace of the soul:
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,
The gay recess of wisdom and of wit,
And passion's port, that never brook'd control;
Can all, saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?
BYRON.
The broken heart which kindness never heals,
The home-sick passion which the negro feels,
When toiling, fainting, in the land of canes,
His spirit wanders to his native plains;
His little lovely dwelling there he sees,
Beneath the shade of his paternal trees,
The home of comfort :-then before his eyes
The terrors of captivity arise.
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